M: Your new album, Total Obscurity, is out on Friday, 7th November, and I've been listening to it pretty much all week. Could you describe what lessons you took from your previous album, Darkness In My Home, when going into this new record?
J: I think we stopped thinking in the box. Like, we wanted to defy expectations. We did away with the mentality that “it needs to have a specific structure, or maybe this is too simple, or maybe that's too complicated”. So, we kinda dropped all of that, and we just went in with what we wanted to play and what felt right at the time. You'll see that most of the songs are not that long, like previous albums. We just wanted to play the songs naturally, and after we felt that it was ready and we liked it, we just stopped. We didn't have to put extra effort to make it more interesting or whatever, you know. It just felt right.
M: Would you say that it was like restricting yourself that made this a bit more of an open record?
J: Yeah, it was a bit weird. We were restricting ourselves to be simple, which was kind of liberating.
M: I found a lot of the lyrics on the album to be really quite poignant. Where did the imagery and the poetry of those lyrics come from? Was it from general observations that you saw around? Was it imagination? Was it inspired by literature?
J: It depends on the track. Some songs tell stories, and there are songs that are based on feelings and situations and basically, real life. So we basically use the lyrics to describe how we feel and what the vibe of the world around us is at a specific moment in time. Some of the issues we are all dealing with, or whoever writes the lyrics, most of the time, that's me. I write about stuff that’s in my mind or things that make me think, or whatever.
Also, because we love literature and movies and all that stuff. We sometimes take inspiration from the media we consume in order to maybe create a story.
I don't really like to be straightforward with the lyrics. I like to make them sound more like a story or narration or whatever. I don't want to get political and stuff like that, for example.
M: Of course. I think the one that struck me the most was probably Final Words (Before I Go). It’s a particularly dark song, but it has a bit of levity when it gets to the chorus line. Is that song about seeing your own death essentially in the near future? That’s how I interpreted it.
J: Yeah, I know it sounds a bit grim, but it's not exactly that dark. It's more like accepting that you're going to die and that at some point. It’s about stopping yourself from being afraid and just living your life until it's the end. You never know, maybe after you die, that's the ultimate freedom. I find it to be quite a pleasant track. Some previous lyrics were like, “it's all black after that”.
M: Fair enough. So I know recently you've added a new drummer, George Panas, to the band. How has he settled into the role, and has he picked up the older material?
J: We've been playing with George for just a few months before we recorded the album. So that’s maybe less than a year. He’s settled in really well. He started the old material and, you know, put some of his own touches in it, like different drum breaks and stuff. Well, he kept the structure of the songs.
For the new album, you can hear that the drumming is quite different to previous years because George has a slightly different style than John had. He likes more complicated drum rolls and stuff like that. But, yeah, it's working out really well with George, and we're going on with him.
M: Fantastic. So, have you felt like the writing process has changed with the addition of a new member, or is it pretty much the same standard as what you've been doing on previous records?
J: It's pretty much the same, I'd say. Costas and I usually bring the music. Then we rehearse it, we play it and experiment in the studio. So basically, usually the drummer adds his own stuff and his own input while we rehearse the songs mainly. However, we don't know what the future holds for that aspect.
M: Excellent. Another point I wanted to bring up was the album art. It's very striking. How did that come about? Because it was done by the artist Black Vomit.
J: She was really cool. I found her on Fiverr after a long, long search of trying to find the right feel and the right to be suited to the album. We wanted to get something that captured the album title because that has a different meaning to everybody.
So, she does basically portraits, and she does it, of course, by hand. It's like a canvas painting. She did really capture the feeling I wanted from my lyrics, and Costas from his lyrics. You know, just the overall feel of the album. We do like our dark aesthetics, if I may say so. The album is about an existential crisis, confusion, overwhelming, being overwhelmed by the world around you, so I think that face captures that all.
M: Absolutely. You have described this album as a complete album, so, not something you dip in and out of in terms of just selecting different tracks. You wanted to have the album as a whole. How did that feel, putting that kind of album together, whereby you're making a listening experience?
J: It's probably our first time working on an album and not minding how long the songs are. We usually write longer songs. So, by not caring for that and just putting a song out there and playing it and then when it felt ready, just drop it onto the record. It felt simple, and that's it, which helped create these songs. By putting them all together, you get the whole experience, as each song has its own story. What we ended up with is an album where each song completes the preceding and the next. When you have a record that flows like that, I think that helps the listener to enjoy the album in its entirety, in one play.
Also, in my personal experience as a listener of music, and especially new music, I like it when it's easier to have one listen and maybe get intrigued. Then give it another two or three listens, and maybe understand the album more, what I'm listening to. So I think maybe, if we're lucky, we have achieved that with this album.
M: Yeah, I could say that. I've been listening to this album pretty much all week, and I never pick one song over the other. I usually just hit play on the first track and then let it play. In saying that, are there any specific albums that you've enjoyed that are like that, as a listener?
J: Yeah, sure. A few albums from The Cure. For example, Seventeen Seconds, Pornography or Disintegration. Then all of the Ghost albums, because we love Ghost. And of course, the older Metallica material.
M: There's more than a good handful there! Moving on. One thing that I have been doing over the last two years is doing a deep dive into Greek rock and heavy metal bands. I just kind of want to get from your perspective what it's like playing shows in Greece, what the crowds are like, and what the feel is.
So, because I've been in this scene for a bit over two decades now, and in that time, I've been involved with a few projects and my bands. I also operated a record label. I’ve done shows and promoted shows mainly based on the Greek underground scene and the Greek rock and metal scene.
I just wanted to say that over the past two to five years, the scene has grown significantly! A lot more bands that are at a professional level are out there and chasing their dreams.
However, the Greek underground scene reality is a bit harsh. Not many make money from music in Greece, and also the state will not support the arts and stuff, unless it's traditional Greek music. If you have English lyrics and you play rock and metal, things are harder for you. So, it's more difficult to get a following. It's more difficult to play shows because there are not a lot of venues, and you know, Athens is not London, it's way smaller.
You can play two or three shows in a month, and you have to be considerate of what's going to show up for the second one or the third one. So, you have to plan and play strategically, find shows and play again, all over the country. It's less and less wherever you go, and it's very expensive to do so. We all work jobs away from playing music; there aren’t many just doing the rock life. So, yeah, we enjoy playing live; we always enjoy it. It doesn’t matter if it's for ten people or two hundred and ten people, we're going to give the same amount of effort.
But if you’re not a known band and you don't have a big following, it's pretty hard to do a proper show and be fulfilled by it.
But, then again, maybe it's a bit of our fault as well. We've been absent for a while. It was the pandemic, then we had to change the drummer, and life got a bit hectic. So, we were absent for a bit. So, that definitely makes sense. After you left the scene for five years, it's not going to be the same coming back, because it's not like we have a big name or anything.
M: This is why I wanted to shine a bit of a spotlight on the Greek scene. Because there are so many good bands that I've discovered. It's such a diverse pool of bands I've found, and it's just become a bit of a fascination. To the point where I'm even learning Greek at the moment. I just kind of wanted to make a note of it.
J: Sure, sure. It's good to hear, man. There are a lot of interesting bands in Greece.
M: What do you feel is the next step for Night Resident?
J: We are going to try to promote the album as much as we can. Which is not too much, because, as I said, we all work jobs away from the band. But we want to do some shows this year after the album comes out. We're going to probably do a couple of shows during the winter in Athens. Then, depending on how the album does, and if people like it, we might go a bit in some of the cities outside Athens. But it's probably going to be playing it by ear for a bit. (16:28) We're just going to wait and see what happens. We do have the appetite, and we do have the will to spend time and money on it.
We are looking forward to doing some shows promoting the record, but we're not making a plan. I know from experience that when you're making plans, the universe just laughs back at you.
M: Awesome, I hope the shows go smoothly. As for my final question. What is the hardest thing, professionally or personally, you've had to overcome, and how did you overcome it?
Personally, the hardest thing was acceptance, I guess. Acceptance of one's fate, I guess. I'm not talking about life and death. Although it's all intertwined.
I've been working in music for a long time. I've been a musician in my heart and in my brain since I was a kid, so I tried to make it. I did a lot of stuff. I have a recording studio, I had a label and worked with bands, but it didn't really work out. I couldn't sustain myself financially. So, one of the biggest and hardest things was to accept that I'm going to have to do other stuff. And, at least, if not put that aside, you know, I have to share my time.
I am a firm believer that we need to do, as Gandalf said to Frodo, the best we can with the time we're given in this realm. So, I think that it's very important for people to do what they love in this life. Because my belief is that it's only one life. So, you have to be good at it and enjoy it, basically. That's the most important thing.
That was hard, but after I accepted that fate and that life, everything kind of started rolling a bit easier. I might say that I even enjoy playing music a bit more now, because I don't stress about things. Will I have to pay the bills next time? Will I have the money to? It's okay now. I’ve got the job, I have the money to pay the bills, and I get to do what I love in parallel.
So, I'm grateful for that, and maybe that's why the lyrics are a bit grim on that album, but then again, it's reality for me. So, I don't think that speaking what you feel and having a more realistic point of view about life and death is a bad thing. I mean, we can all be flowers and butterflies.
M: That's beautiful, and that's actually a really nice note to end on.
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